There are various different types of solar thermal power plants in operation worldwide. To date, the most successful economically are para- bolic troughs which concentrate the sun’s rays. State of the art technology is to implement the collectors as spatial steel frameworks with mirrors supported at specific points. However, there are other possible alternatives for this design: as part of the subproject "Light distor- tion-resistant shell structures made of micro-reinforced UHPC using the example of parabolic trough solar thermal power plants", which is being sponsored by the German Research Foundation (DFG) within the priority programme 1542 "Lightweight Building with Concrete", an economic design variant using high-strength concrete as a material is demonstrated. This resulted in a large-scale model demonstrating the feasibility of this type of innovative precast element made of high-strength concrete which came about through collaboration between the Kaiserslautern Technical University and Ruhr University Bochum. The content of this paper describes the design and implementation of the large-scale demonstrator, which is equipped with a new, patent-protected supporting structure.
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